


I Don't Own a Love so True

by ineedsomecyanide



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil
Genre: Afterlife, Canonical Character Death, Daydreaming, Excessive use of italics, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Gay Panic, Hair Braiding, Holding Hands, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Is it all in Éponine's head?, Jealousy, Love at First Sight, Minor Cosette Fauchelevent/Marius Pontmercy, Not A Fix-It, Pining, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Unrequited Love, Useless Lesbians, You decide!, a tree root makes an appearance, or not?, Éponine's POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 03:08:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16054205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineedsomecyanide/pseuds/ineedsomecyanide
Summary: “I am and dead — or almostI seem to me.”(Sappho 31, translated by Anne Carson, 2002)Based on the prompt: “In the London production, there's about five seconds - after Éponine has screamed and the gang have vanished - where Cosette and Éponine are on either side of the fence, frozen, staring at each other, before Valjean appears and Éponine runs off with Marius. I can't help but wonder what would have happened if Éponine had returned to talk to Cosette, and how things would have changed - or if they would have changed at all.”





	I Don't Own a Love so True

**Author's Note:**

  * For [erinaconyx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/erinaconyx/gifts).



> This work is unbeta’d, so all the mistakes are mine.  
> It takes place in a mishmash of musical and Brick, sorry if you expected musical only!

> I don't know if I ever make it through  
>  Then again I don't own a love so true  
>  I wanna say "I'm sorry"  
>  You say "I know you do,  
>  But you can let it go. It's up to you" 
> 
> _Eponine_ – Penny  & Sparrow 

A scream pierces the air. Cosette jumps, and grabs the fence, startled. The next thing Éponine feels is the slap that her father gave her. It is nothing new, and it burns, but it is not worse than the other times. Éponine does not care anymore, and it almost does not hurt. She runs as fast as she can towards Marius, while her father is yelling something about the sewers, and vanishing underground. All that she cares about is that the gang will be gone and that Marius will not think she is part of the ambush.

“Thank you, Éponine, you saved us. Dearest Cosette, she’s my friend 'Ponine, she brought me to you -" 

But Éponine does not hear a word that her friend is saying. She is like transfixed, still, looking beyond the fence. _Cosette_. There is something about her, in that very moment, that captures Éponine attention as she never did before. She has seen her a few days ago, when her father's fraud mingled with the student's protest, the police jumped them, and ghosts came back from the past. Cosette was gorgeous that day, of course, under her bonnet, and Éponine had not recognized her until many moments later. She had certainly caught _Marius's_ attention: he had looked as he had seen the Holy Virgin Herself in that poor downtrodden alley, and he couldn't stop talking about the _angel_ he saw for days.  
Maybe it was the moonlight, or maybe the faint light of the street lamps, maybe the fact that she was wearing what seemed to be her nightgown, but now Éponine could see what Marius had seen that day, not so long ago. With her hair is disarray, a soft blush on her cheeks, Cosette does look like something not from this world, she looks like Marie Taglioni should have looked in _La Sylphide_ , according to what Éponine has read in scraps of newspaper.  
She had seen Cosette countless times when they were children, but there's nothing of the dirty, mousy-faced little girl in her today.  
Éponine understands Marius now. 

Cosette is standing still too, motionless on the other side of the garden gate; Éponine does not know what is going on in her mind: she does not quite dare to hope that she is feeling the same thing she is experiencing. But she knows really well how she looks, and there's nothing angelic in a wretch like her. 

Marius goes quiet, he has heard a man's voice calling for Cosette. The old man. Her father, for sure.  
"Come, 'Ponine, someone's here!", and he flees, gesturing to Éponine to follow him. 

The moment is gone: Cosette turns around, running towards the old man's voice; Éponine watches her back, her billowing hair and clothes for a moment, and then moves to reach Marius, whose calling is becoming more and more insistent. She'll be back, of that she's sure. 

* 

And so Éponine is back, but she takes care of not being seen, at least the first times. She observes. She starts to know the family's habits, she knows that they have a servant, and Cosette's father goes outside more often alone than he does with Cosette, and at strange hours, but their lives are still very private and secluded. 

(She does not remember much of the man who brought Cosette away so many years ago, she only heard her father muttering that he's a convict). 

She's happy if she can catch even just a glimpse of Cosette. One sweltering afternoon (this spring has been strangely warm) she sees her playing the piano, with the windows open and the curtains moving lightly in the wind. Éponine stays in her hidden corner, basking in the sweet melody Cosette is playing, maybe pressing down the keys a bit too hard, but Éponine is not knowledgeable enough in music and so everything is fine. 

* 

Another time, she sees her much closer: she passes her while she is going outside with the servant, and Éponine is in her usual hiding corner – it hides her so well that Cosette does not see her. Éponine feels disappointed, and it's a weird and unexpected feeling: she does not know why she is suddenly so shy; it certainly did not happen with Marius, when she entered his room and behaved like it was her own. Suddenly she decides that she needs to pull herself together and that that night she is going to the garden in the Rue Plumet again and talk to Cosette, whatever it happens. 

She has watched the house enough to know what window is Cosette's, and she is already willing to throw pebbles at it, when she sees that Cosette is already pacing nervously in the garden. She's probably waiting for Marius. Something burns in Éponine's stomach, it makes her angry towards her friend and too protective towards Cosette. _Jealousy_. To fight it, she moves towards the gate and nods towards Cosette.  
"Is there Marius with you?" A pang of jealousy again.  
"It's just me tonight". Luckily for Éponine's heart, Cosette does not look any less enthusiastic than she was before; on the contrary, it seems to Éponine that she lightened up a little bit more. But maybe it's just her besotted mind that is playing tricks on her; she does not dare to hope. 

“So, uhm…” she starts. Cosette is looking at her through the fence, a little confused. “I wanted to see you again.” 

“On Marius’s behalf?” Cosette interrupts her. 

“On mine.” Perhaps Éponine blurted this out a little bit too smugly. She can feel her cheeks heating up. Damn. She needs to do this quickly, or she won’t do it ever again. What did happen to her courage? “I just wanted to tell you, for what it’s worth it – and I know it’s not worth much – that I’m sorry for how badly I used to treat you when we were children. I didn’t know... a lot of things, and I was just a stupid little girl. I can’t make up for the time you lost and how sad I made you, but...” 

“Éponine! Éponine, stop! Don’t brood on what it was! To be frank, I can’t remember much of that time. It’s a time that is gone. Come inside, you can pass through the fence, there's an opening, my father won't notice. Furthermore, you're smaller than Marius."  
Éponine huffs at the remark, but she follows Cosette's instructions nonetheless: the opening in the fence is there, among the leaves of the hedge; Éponine's slender frame passes through it without a problem, but, knowing how much Marius eats (or rather, does not), she doubts he had any issue. 

Cosette is waiting for her on the other side; Éponine trips over something (a root or a rock she had not seen), and Cosette is there to catch her by her hand. An angry blush spreads over Éponine’s cheeks, her pride is wounded, and so is her heart, but with love. She is sure she did not feel like that for Marius (or anyone else until now). She mentally slaps herself for acting so foolish. 

Why is Cosette behaving so nice towards her anyway? What did she do to earn it? But Cosette’s slender fingers grab her wrist and any other thought is wiped from her mind. 

She guides her to a bench in a secluded corner of the garden, a garden – Éponine now has time to look at it – which is largely left to grow on its own, it’s not carefully manicured as other rich people’s gardens she has seen from afar. She likes it so much more than those. 

She can see the stars through the foliage, and Cosette has started talking, and Éponine thinks that her voice resembles the water flowing out of a fountain or in a clear stream in her childhood memories. Cosette talks about the convent, and the girls she left there, she’s still writing to some of them, they used to write stories about the Bible, “do you know Ruth and Naomi?”, and about her dear Papa, whom she loves tenderly, and he’s kinder than anyone, but she can feel he has a deep mysterious dark secret he does not want to share with her. In all of this, maybe because she is too excited about what she is talking about, she has not let go of Éponine’s hand. She is feeling hazy and blissful, as she was in a dream she does not want to wake up from. 

* 

After, when she is in the dingy room that shares with her parents and Azelma, she thinks about how everything Cosette has, she could have it. “That could have been me”, she contemplates while laying in what one could have called her bed, restless. “I could have had all the nice things she has”. The thought makes a strange ache settle inside her, and so she goes to her next meeting with Cosette frowning and sulking. But her smile and her gentle voice, and her kind, but firm manners manage to restore a smile upon her face and to loosen the knot in her stomach. 

* 

Éponine’s head is laying on Cosette’s lap, and she is complimenting her on her hair, which is the last thing Éponine thought someone could say to her: it’s a tangled mess that has not seen a comb in a long time. “But it’s so dark and thick!”, replies Cosette, running her fingers through Éponine’s hair. Then she asks her to get up, and starts braiding it, singing a nonsensical tune under her breath. After a while she lights up, abandons the bench (“their bench”, as they have almost unconsciously started to call it), and starts picking flowers, the smallest she can find in the wild, overgrown garden, and braids them in Éponine hair. She can feel that her hair is even messier than before, but she wants to believe Cosette when she says that she looks beautiful. 

* 

Éponine wants to take Cosette away from that garden, which looks like it is frozen in time, she wants to take her hand in hers (they hold hands in the garden, but doing it while walking is different, Éponine thinks) – no one will notice two small girls - and show her the alive, bustling Paris she knows, and also its secret nooks and crannies; she wants to kiss her blushing cheeks, and the tip of her nose, and her lips, and... 

* 

Reality is a bucket of freezing water upon her head: the revolution is near, she can hear Marius and his friends, and even her parents, talking about it, the people are restless, there will be blood in the streets. Even worse than that, it is the cold, hard fact that Cosette loves Marius, and not Éponine, no matter how much she daydreams; she saw Marius at her gate the other night, and she shamefully ran away, her cheeks burning. 

She will join the students in their revolt, she has decided: someone has to watch over Marius, she would never forgive herself if something happened to Marius, she would not be able to bear Cosette’s sorrow. She has stacked some masculine clothes – found here and there, borrowed, stolen – under her bed, folded and ready for when the time will come. But she can’t disappear completely without seeing Cosette one last time: she has thought about doing it, but it will be too painful for both of them. 

Éponine finds Cosette already in tears: earlier, Marius has told her his plans, and her father wants to move to England, she says. She is utterly devastated, and Éponine cannot blame her: all the good in her life has been destroyed in so little time. But maybe there is hope, Éponine thinks, maybe she can protect Marius, and make sure he will come back home safe and sound. She says it aloud, she wants to soothe Cosette’s pain, but the tears now are streaming down her face even more copiously than before. 

“You can’t go, you can’t go, you can’t leave me alone, Éponine... first Marius, and then you...” her voice is broken and punctuated with sobs and sniffs. 

Éponine’s heart is broken; for the first time in her life, she is at a loss of words. She nearly jumps when Cosette flings herself in her arms. 

The kiss is fleeting, and it does not last more than a heartbeat; it is desperate, full of half-promises, and tastes like tears; Éponine is not so sure anymore if they are Cosette’s or hers. 

Éponine runs her thumbs on Cosette’s cheeks, as they could stop the thousands of tears that are wetting them, and then she is up and running away, crying. She can hear her beloved saying “Please come back”, but it is too late now. 

* 

Death stings and burns and it is more painful than anything Éponine has ever felt, but she is in Marius’s arms, and the rain somewhat eases her discomfort, even more than the nonsensical lullaby he is whispering in her hair. _He would have been dead without me_ , thinks Éponine. _I was right to come here today. Now he’s safe. Cosette will be happy._ Thinking about her brings a smile on her face, and then there’s only darkness. 

* 

“It’s time to go” Fantine taps her shoulder lightly. Some time has passed since the barricades, and she has met Cosette’s mother, and they talked and talked. Afterlife is not quite what preachers threatened, but it is probably better like that. She did not really think about it when she was alive.  
She saw Marius’s friends come one by one, and it was bittersweet. She is pretty sure that she saw the soul of _that_ Inspector too, but she is not really sure.  
She spied on Cosette and Marius’s lives – he got out alive of that bloodbath that the revolt was, as Éponine was sure, thanks to Cosette’s father. They got married, but now Marius’s saviour is dying, and a heavenly presence is required. 

Cosette is beautiful, and so is Marius, in their wedding attire and sorrow. Cosette, in particular, has tears streaming down her face, like the last time Éponine saw her; she reminds her of a crying statue of the Virgin she once saw in a church. Her life seems now hundreds of years away. 

The scene is heart-breaking: Marius is whispering apologies and Cosette is begging her father not to go – before realizing it, Éponine is weeping. _Being dead has made me soft_ , she thinks. The old man is at peace and smiling, and soon his soul has left his body and is among them, guided by Fantine. But Éponine’s eyes are still fixed on the sobbing couple, huddled together on the cold floor. 

“Wait”, she whispers at her, and at Cosette’s father bright soul. There is also a priest waiting for him, and she is pretty certain she caught a glimpse of a drowned soul too: she will not be needed and missed for a while.  
Marius and Cosette are both crying in each other’s arms, and Éponine puts her arms around them: she has missed them, and watching over their life has not been enough. Now that the light of the afterlife lights her heart, she cannot feel anything but an immense love for them, and she is glad they found each other; there is no more room for jealousy in her soul. 

She kisses them both on their foreheads, and then runs away to join the other spirits in their journey back home. She will never be sure if in that moment, they saw her, or if they were just looking at a haphazard spot, but she likes to think that they did, even if for a brief time, in that night when the line between the world of the living and the afterlife got blurred.

**Author's Note:**

> I just had to quote Sappho because I’m a pretentious fuck.
> 
> Now on some fun historical notes! _La Sylphide_ is a ballet originally choreographed by Filippo Taglioni in 1832; his version sadly didn’t survive to this day, but we have August Bournonville’s second version from 1836, which is one of the oldest surviving ballets. It premiered on 12 March 1832 at the Paris Opéra, so it’s highly possible that Éponine read about it. La Sylphide was the first ballet where dancing _en pointe_ was not just an acrobatic stunt, but had meaning. The sylph from the title was originally played by Taglioni’s daughter, Marie, and her shorter skirts to show off the pointe work were considered scandalous at the time (from [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Sylphide)).
> 
> I also made a mini playlist with songs that inspired me while writing this fic or reminded me of it. You can listen to it on  
> [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvPLf6FkbE_s1OzckKHCjriTOpQMD8Y9M) or [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7o0dXJTfRt2RmUokhbuBe4).


End file.
